China Opens Travel to Taiwan

In a Bid to Ease Tensions, Tourists Allowed to Visit Island

BEIJING, May 20 -- China said Friday that it was willing to allow Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan on organized trips, another in a series of steps designed to ease tension and curry favor among the island's 23 million inhabitants.

Officials at the National Tourism Bureau urged Chinese and Taiwanese travel agencies to enter into talks directly to work out how such tourism could proceed "in a planned, orderly and step-by-step way," the official New China News Agency reported. The Chinese government, they added, stands ready to facilitate visits by tour groups, Chinese vacationers' favorite way to travel.

Ordinary Chinese have faced tight controls on travel to Taiwan from both governments since Chiang Kai-shek fled there with his Nationalist forces in 1949 after losing to Mao Zedong's Communists. Since then, China has insisted that Taiwan renounce its de facto independence, which has led to a long and volatile standoff across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait.

China's willingness to liberalize its travel rules followed a history-making visit here in late April by Lien Chan, chairman of the Nationalist Party once headed by Chiang; the party is now a Taiwanese opposition group.

James Soong, head of the island's other main opposition group, the People First Party, visited two weeks later. Both were treated to effusive official welcomes and televised meetings with President Hu Jintao, along with promises for more measures to improve relations between China and Taiwan.

China's friendly gestures toward Taiwan have intensified since the legislature passed a measure on March 14 that authorizes the use of force to prevent Taiwan from declaring formal independence. The legislation, called the Anti-Secession Law, enraged President Chen Shui-bian's independence-minded government in Taiwan and cast China in a bad light internationally.

Taiwan would have to adjust its restrictive immigration rules before large numbers of Chinese tourists would be able to visit, officials noted. Chen's transportation minister, Lin Ling-san, told the Reuters news agency that Taiwan welcomed China's announcement but cautioned that "it involves many issues and the scope is broad."

Stocks of tourism-related companies in Taiwan jumped as investors looked forward to profits from Chinese travelers. As China's economy booms, the number of Chinese tourists has risen steadily, providing a new market for such destinations as Thailand and Hong Kong.

Under Taiwan's current rules, only Chinese citizens who are traveling or living abroad for business or who have third-country residence visas, such as U.S. green cards, have been allowed to enter Taiwan. These amounted to only 12,800 entries in 2003, according to Chinese and Taiwanese immigration statistics.

In addition, about 150,000 mainland Chinese a year received permits from both capitals to visit relatives in Taiwan, and an additional 14,000 a year got business travel permits.

On the other hand, more than 20 million Taiwanese have entered the mainland in the last decade, according to official Chinese statistics. As many as 1 million Taiwanese live in China, most of them businessmen and their families.